Obviously you missed the "Check For Service" box at the bottom of the page. You are aware that they have a VERY limited service area, right? Surely you weren't stupid enough to believe this is an option for most people in the country, right? Right?
If I control everything you see, hear, and all your means of communication with the outside world then yes, I do in fact control YOU. I can make you support any politician, vote any way that I want you to, believe anything I want you to, and harbor any misconception or prejudice I want you to.
There are plenty of examples of how this happens anytime you have a media bottleneck. I grew up in the U.S. during the Cold War and saw plenty of such propagandistic filtering thanks to a tightly controlled media. Until the internet came along, I never knew the Russians had put a probe on Mars before us. I never heard about the MIR until it started having problems. I never heard the name Sergey Korolyov. I didn't know about the first woman in space, or her name.
There was a time when the media filtered everything for me. The internet changed that and I *DO NOT* want to go back to the way it was before. I do not want Time-Warner, Comcast, etc. clamping down on my downloads--especially if they're site-specific restrictions like AT&T recently proposed.
So does Windows. And while Windows, like iPod, enjoys the vast majority of the market share, there is absolutely NOTHING to prevent you from installing Linux on your PC (doesn't even cost you anything), anymore than there is anything to stop you from buying a Zune or other iPod competitor.
It's only an "epidemic" of reporting. This sort of thing has always went on in any high school (probably more than a few middle schools too), it was just never reported on and never considered worthy of note. Occasionally a teacher would get caught at it, be fired, and that would be that. In my high school (in the 80's) I can think of at least three female teachers who were known to be, to put it politely, "of loose moral values" when it came to their more handsome male students. And my father said the same thing went on when he was in high school (in the 50's/60's).
There were also more than a few Lolitas and lechers in my hometown. Unfortunately, I always seemed to get the Lolitas as my babysitters (all I wanted to do was play my Atari 2600 and be left alone, and instead I had to listen to some 16-year-old drone on about all the married men she had seduced, sad).
So the only thing that's new today is the fact that this is sensationally reported on and the fact that it's considered much more harmful than it once was (back when a male student/female teacher relationship was considered pretty harmless to the student).
When the same company provides your cable service (including your cable pay-per-view service), your internet service, AND produces media content themselves; is there any doubt that this will cause a serious conflict of interest that will harm the consumer? Time-Warner has EVERY incentive to keep you from using movie download services instead of their own pay-per-view service and EVERY incentive to stop movie/TV pirate sites (to keep you from pirating Warner movies and TV).
This is why consolidation in media is such a BAD, BAD, BAD thing for consumers. When one single company (or even small group of companies) owns your newspaper, television stations, internet service, telephone company, cable company, etc. they basically own *YOU*.
If an ISP really wanted to crack down, and install the kind of filtering software a lot of us have at work, one of the first things they will block is DNS rerouting and all known proxy server services. About the only thing you can do in that case is to either find a proxy that they haven't heard of (which they would be onto the second they noticed you using it a lot) or set up your own proxy server on an unfiltered box somewhere (difficult if your all the other ISP's are blocking a given site too).
Yeah but with a motorcycle crash at least you can still brake a motorcycle a little as you slide, and skid along the ground when you hit--dispersing much of the energy along the way and maybe surviving. Lose control of a jetpack and it's pretty much a straight fall to the ground.
George W. Bush doesn't seem to much care about political suicide. He is too insulated to even appreciate the dangers of going to war with Iran and too close to the end of his (non-renewable) term to much care even if he did appreciate it.
I keep (wishfully) telling myself "Even *HE* can't be that stupid." But I still fear that his hubris (combined with the Democrats' propensity for caving like scared schoolgirls) could yet produce a third front--when we can't even effectively hold the two we have.
As someone who has had been around both plenty of G.I.'s and frat-boys in my time, I can tell you that I would generally trust the frat-boys a helluva lot more. That's not to say that I haven't known plenty of frat-boy fuck-ups and pricks in my time (Lord knows I could name them), but that frat-boys had a lot more to lose than most young G.I.'s (frat-boys are usually only wild within certain confines, they don't want criminal records or to get thrown out of college). A G.I. knows that he can fuck-up a *lot* worse and face little more than maybe getting busted in rank or a minor reprimand. This is especially true in wartime (when you can literally get away with murder).
I've known a lot of soldiers in my time, and I've yet to meet even one who signed up for anything so noble (or abstract) as to "defend the Constitution." I have meet soldiers who needed a career (and, contrary to popular belief the military DOES pay well, once you've put in some time and gotten some rank--particularly when you consider the VERY modest requirements for enlistment in the first place), because they needed money for college, because they were interested in a political career and knew that serving would help this (that was 90% of all the ROTC guys I knew in college), and some just because they were aimless and some recruiter convinced them that it would be a great way to "see the world" (they don't tell you that it will be some of the nastiest parts).
The military is a good career opportunity for a lot of people (particularly those who don't have a lot of options, and these are the backbone of the young pricks), but it's not a calling, or a gathering places for noble heroes. Heroes and their "callings" are usually made decades after-the-fact, when soldiers forget things like trying to shoot themselves in the foot to escape combat.
Google couldn't expect to go on forever without any real competition (and they haven't really had any for some time now). Either they will rise to the occasion (and become even better than before) or they won't, and will falter. Either way, I don't really see it hurting me as a consumer. Even if MS/Yahoo became the new dominant kid on the block, it wouldn't be long before someone new came along gunning for them. I remember when Google was first starting out, and everyone said "No way anyone is going to knock Yahoo and Alta Vista off the map, much less some little startup."
A quality product and word of mouth always assure good competition on the internet. The only thing that threatens this (and a much graver threat than anything MS has ever dared do with Windows) is the threat of ISP's abandoning net neutrality and setting up their own little pipeline ghettos.
It's funny because it presumes that Google is any less a greedy, sleazy corporation than MS. May I remind you that this is the same Google that scours its Chinese search engine of naughty terms like "democracy" just so it can make a few extra bucks?
The only "do no evil" that Google cares about is "do no evil to the stockholders and profits."
I'm ready to follow him myself. I've already got my pitchfork, my torch, a map of the local University, and this cool "BURN THE GODLESS HERETICS!!!" sign (I used glitter on the lettering, which I think makes it look much better).
They're all dumb kids that would've ended up in prison if a recruiter hadn't talked them into enlisting--right?
I'm a third generation military brat. Dad is career Army, so was my grandfather. And, having grown up around Army bases for the first 18 years of my life, I'd have to say that is actually not too far off. There are a lot of good people in the Army, it's true. But most of them are obnoxious kids who were too stupid to go to college and too irresponsible to hold down a civilian job. Sorry to spoil the "noble heroes of freedom" horseshit image that everyone who's never had to live around these pricks seems to have.
If you want a good picture of these noble heroes you idolize so much, might I suggest you head down to Fort Campbell and walk into any bar on 41A on any given night, or head down to Riverside Drive any weekend to see our brave professionals drunkenly hitting on 16-year-old girls?
The problem with the "Jet pack" is that it is an inherently foolish and inefficient idea. That much power, in that small a space, with that many stability issues makes for a nasty combo. Lifting ANY aircaft straight up off the ground and landing if softly in the same way is VERY tricky, even for a well-trained human operator (ever wonder why helicopter autopilots are so rare?). Trying do do that with a small mechanism that can fit on or be carried around by a single human is even more tricky. With tolerances that tight, the slighest windgust or miscalculation could send your jetpack spirally helplessesly out of control as you plummet to the ground.
Just because it looks cool in a Bond movie doesn't mean that it will ever be practical in real life.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously you missed the "Check For Service" box at the bottom of the page. You are aware that they have a VERY limited service area, right? Surely you weren't stupid enough to believe this is an option for most people in the country, right? Right?
There are plenty of examples of how this happens anytime you have a media bottleneck. I grew up in the U.S. during the Cold War and saw plenty of such propagandistic filtering thanks to a tightly controlled media. Until the internet came along, I never knew the Russians had put a probe on Mars before us. I never heard about the MIR until it started having problems. I never heard the name Sergey Korolyov. I didn't know about the first woman in space, or her name.
There was a time when the media filtered everything for me. The internet changed that and I *DO NOT* want to go back to the way it was before. I do not want Time-Warner, Comcast, etc. clamping down on my downloads--especially if they're site-specific restrictions like AT&T recently proposed.
Of course, AT&T are proposing some crazy shit of their own.
Well, if you get that DSL through AT&T, you had better make sure those downloads don't violate any copyight laws.
So does Windows. And while Windows, like iPod, enjoys the vast majority of the market share, there is absolutely NOTHING to prevent you from installing Linux on your PC (doesn't even cost you anything), anymore than there is anything to stop you from buying a Zune or other iPod competitor.
Finally a chance to attempt my dream: the "Bareback Dutch Congo Line"
Am I the only one moderately shocked to learn they're even still around? I thought they got bought out years ago.
There were also more than a few Lolitas and lechers in my hometown. Unfortunately, I always seemed to get the Lolitas as my babysitters (all I wanted to do was play my Atari 2600 and be left alone, and instead I had to listen to some 16-year-old drone on about all the married men she had seduced, sad).
So the only thing that's new today is the fact that this is sensationally reported on and the fact that it's considered much more harmful than it once was (back when a male student/female teacher relationship was considered pretty harmless to the student).
This is why consolidation in media is such a BAD, BAD, BAD thing for consumers. When one single company (or even small group of companies) owns your newspaper, television stations, internet service, telephone company, cable company, etc. they basically own *YOU*.
...a birth defect that caused inversed genitalia and mental instability in its sufferers.
They keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what they think it does.
If an ISP really wanted to crack down, and install the kind of filtering software a lot of us have at work, one of the first things they will block is DNS rerouting and all known proxy server services. About the only thing you can do in that case is to either find a proxy that they haven't heard of (which they would be onto the second they noticed you using it a lot) or set up your own proxy server on an unfiltered box somewhere (difficult if your all the other ISP's are blocking a given site too).
Yeah but with a motorcycle crash at least you can still brake a motorcycle a little as you slide, and skid along the ground when you hit--dispersing much of the energy along the way and maybe surviving. Lose control of a jetpack and it's pretty much a straight fall to the ground.
I say we nuke all the search engines from orbit. Only way to be sure.
I keep (wishfully) telling myself "Even *HE* can't be that stupid." But I still fear that his hubris (combined with the Democrats' propensity for caving like scared schoolgirls) could yet produce a third front--when we can't even effectively hold the two we have.
As someone who has had been around both plenty of G.I.'s and frat-boys in my time, I can tell you that I would generally trust the frat-boys a helluva lot more. That's not to say that I haven't known plenty of frat-boy fuck-ups and pricks in my time (Lord knows I could name them), but that frat-boys had a lot more to lose than most young G.I.'s (frat-boys are usually only wild within certain confines, they don't want criminal records or to get thrown out of college). A G.I. knows that he can fuck-up a *lot* worse and face little more than maybe getting busted in rank or a minor reprimand. This is especially true in wartime (when you can literally get away with murder).
The military is a good career opportunity for a lot of people (particularly those who don't have a lot of options, and these are the backbone of the young pricks), but it's not a calling, or a gathering places for noble heroes. Heroes and their "callings" are usually made decades after-the-fact, when soldiers forget things like trying to shoot themselves in the foot to escape combat.
A quality product and word of mouth always assure good competition on the internet. The only thing that threatens this (and a much graver threat than anything MS has ever dared do with Windows) is the threat of ISP's abandoning net neutrality and setting up their own little pipeline ghettos.
The only "do no evil" that Google cares about is "do no evil to the stockholders and profits."
Apple sell a lot of Linux-equipped Apples in those pretty Apple stores, do they?
I'm ready to follow him myself. I've already got my pitchfork, my torch, a map of the local University, and this cool "BURN THE GODLESS HERETICS!!!" sign (I used glitter on the lettering, which I think makes it look much better).
I'm a third generation military brat. Dad is career Army, so was my grandfather. And, having grown up around Army bases for the first 18 years of my life, I'd have to say that is actually not too far off. There are a lot of good people in the Army, it's true. But most of them are obnoxious kids who were too stupid to go to college and too irresponsible to hold down a civilian job. Sorry to spoil the "noble heroes of freedom" horseshit image that everyone who's never had to live around these pricks seems to have.
If you want a good picture of these noble heroes you idolize so much, might I suggest you head down to Fort Campbell and walk into any bar on 41A on any given night, or head down to Riverside Drive any weekend to see our brave professionals drunkenly hitting on 16-year-old girls?
Chuck Norris doesn't need a jetpack. Gravity knows better than to fuck with him.
Reminds me of the comedian who joked "Why don't they just build the entire aircraft out of the stuff they use to make the black boxes?"
Just because it looks cool in a Bond movie doesn't mean that it will ever be practical in real life.